Yes, it was very chaotic at times last season for Richard Childress, but Jeff Burton says everything is now back on track

  Jeff Burton: can he still win races? He may have to prove that in 2012 (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

    Teammate Kevin Harvick's stunning dismissal of his entire crew last November on the eve of the final race of the season wasn't the only bit of turmoil over in the Richard Childress camp.
    Burton himself went through two such shakeups over the season.
    Now Burton has a new man at the helm, Drew Blickensderfer, just as does Harvick, with Shane Wilson.
   And team owner Richard Childress has had to cut back from four Cup teams to three.
   How will all that shake out?
   So let's keep an eye on both these teams, and this whole situation, as the new Sprint Cup season kicks off.
   Burton says there is a decidedly new outlook heading into this season.
   Last season "was unacceptable in everyone's minds," Burton says.
   "It was embarrassing, to be honest.
   "You're going to have bad years, that's just sports. But last season was just unacceptable."
  
  

    Team owner Richard Childress: shakeups, after a rocky season (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   So there has been a major shakeup within Childress' operation.
     "The week before Homestead and the week after Homestead, it was chaos," Burton concedes. It was touch and go at the shop; it wasn't a fun place to be.
   "You'd walk into the shop and instantly feel 'Uh-oh, don't think I want to be here today.
     "But since then it's been really calm over the winter. The big thing was getting everybody in the right place.
    "One thing Richard and I talked about during this was that having talented people was one thing but putting them all in the right place was crucial.
    "We have championship caliber people. But we haven't gotten them championships….because we have let them down."
    So there will be a new attitude, particularly among the drivers, Burton says: "What you're going to see now is that Kevin and I are both going to be more involved in our teams. On a minute to minute basis. And I think that's a good thing.
    "When I was at my best, I was hands on. But lately I haven't even known what springs are in the car.
    "That's not who I am.
    "I tried to play race car driver, like some other guys do, but that's not me. I need to know what's going on.
    "I don't want to just complain about things when the car is driving bad; I want to be part of the solution. That's 'ownership.' And it's a whole different mindset when you leave the car Saturday afternoon saying 'Wonder what they're going to do to the car?' I don't like that feeling.
    "There was a day when Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin, two of the best chassis men in the business, would come to me and ask me questions.
    "But today I don't even know what springs are in the car. The hell with that. I'm done with that.
    "It's not fair to my crew to say 'I'm a good driver. You've just got to give me a good car.' That's not fair.
   
   

    Drew Blickensderfer: the newest crew chief at Richard Childress'. Can he make Jeff Burton a winner again? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

    "We need to win races. It still bothers me how many races we didn't win in 2010; I've never had so many chances to win races and not win 'em.
    "I'm still mad about 2010. We had a lot of races where if we had a better pit stop or a better restart, we'd have won. And we didn't.
    "We need to become relevant again. And you do that by leading races, winning races, contending for championships.
   "Last year I felt like an outsider. I'd walk by a group of drivers, and they'd just stop talking, because they'd be talking about something I just couldn't talk about. And I didn't like that feeling."
  
   But let's ask a tough question: Is Jeff Burton still a winning driver? His teammates have been winning – Clint Bowyer at Talladega, Kevin Harvick at California, Martinsville, Charlotte and Richmond, Paul Menard at Indianapolis. But Burton's last tour win was in the fall of 2008, and last season he wound up 20th in the final standings.
   Is Jeff Burton still a winning driver?
   "Yes," Blickensderfer insists. "Two years ago he was leading the standings going into the chase, and I don't think in one year you go from a championship driver to a 25th place driver."
  

  

  
Daytona holds a lot of memories for Richard Childress. Some very good, some downright heartbreaking (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   So why isn't Burton still winning?
   Blickensderfer points to Childress' operational model of leaving it up to the crew chiefs to decide the technicals, instead of having a standard model for all the teams to follow (as Blickensderfer was used to at Jack Roush's).
   "Instead of having common race cars, each team had drastically different cars, whatever each crew chief wanted," Blickensderfer says.
   "That's why you saw Kevin Harvick competing for championships but not Jeff.
   "This year our cars will be very similar. Shane, Slugger and I all want to work on similar things. 
   "We're not going to have dissimilar simple things, like grill screens and brake fluid. And in this economy if we can eliminate the simple stuff we can not only save money but save time in the wind tunnels and things like that, and if one of us gets off we can get back to home base. There's nothing more frustrating than having a fast teammate on a weekend but not having the same kind of car as him."
    Burton has long been one of this sport's best philosophers and big picture guys. But now he's focused on the small picture – getting himself and his team more relevant each weekend.
    "Bristol last summer changed a lot of things at Richard's," Burton says. "Richard's teams always run good at Bristol, but this time we all ran terrible. And Monday after Bristol was ugly back at the shop.
   "Richard knew something was wrong. That event was eye-opening.
   "We just weren't good. The stuff just didn't drive good, and we didn't have the speed."
    That, Burton says, has changed: "Where we are today is a lot because of what happened at Bristol.
   "So I'm fired up and ready to go….but it's a long time between now and the December banquet, and you've got to maintain your composure. Everybody wants to win the Daytona 500, but you do that corner by corner by corner. If you break the race down into 200 laps, then into 800 corners, that's how you win. 
   "And that's how you have to race the season."
   And that season starts right here this weekend.

   Jeff Burton: ready to laugh again (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)